"Let it be one cheerful rational voice amidst the din of mourners and polemics." Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1840.
A Brit-in-Helsinki's blog about global politics, climbing, cycling, things that annoy me and other bits of life. But not necessarily in that order.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Live Blogging! Independence Day Drinkies...

So I'm at a joint Finnish Independence Day (tomorrow) and birthday party for Tony, sometime climbing partner and amateur cocktail developer. He is so impressed with his new cocktails that he felt they needed to be shared with the world immediately. So feast your eyes on the following:

The first has been named The Itsenäisyyspäivä (Independence Day), please admire the very Finnish colours. The second is a multipurpose cocktail that has so far been pressed into service to welcome both a French friend and a British friend (me!), but is most obviously suited for any cocktail drinking Russians out there. We are currently trying to work out how to do an Australian one. Answers on a postcard to the normal address - the comments box.

Happy Birthday to Tony and Happy Independence Day to all the Finns reading!

We tried this. Lime just wasn,t green enough. However, in a seperate glass we mixed blue curacao with galliano and that made a really vivid green which was also useful as we had to make Portugal later. We then mixed this with sugar solution which made it really heavy. It was then easy to float galliano on top. The real works of art were Germany and Sweden. I hope we can show them here.

Please try this at homeyou need sugar, grenadine, blue curacao, galliano, coffee, hard colourless liquor at 40% alcohol and water and I think you can make just about any flag.

I promised Toby that i would write the recipes but really there aren,t any. The bottom layer has to be densest and the top layer the lightest. Alcohol is lighter than water. Dissolving sugar in the bottom layer also helps make it heavier. Aim to have the bottom layer at 0% alcohol (with sugar). The second layer at 20% alochol and the top layer at 40%. With grenedine, blue curacao and galliano you can mix any colour (remeber primary colours in art class), coffee is needed for black (instant mixed with cold water and sugar).

A real French flag.Put grenedine into a glass. Then prepare the top layer, in a seperate glass add a small amount of blue curacao to a larger amount of hard liquor (the drink with a name similar to contreaux would be my choice!). Add this gentely to the grenedine. These shouldn,t mix as they have quite different physical properties. Then prepare the middle layer. Mix well colourless liquor with water at about 40..60 ratio. Use a spoon to slowly pour this down the side of the glass. This should neatly slide between the two layers. hey presto, you have a real French flag.